Sunday, April 30, 2017

Good Bones by Maggie SmithLife is short, though I keep this from my children.Life is short, and I've shortened minein a thousand delicious ill-advised waysin a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways,I'll keep from my children. The world is at leastfifty percent terrible, and that's a conservativeestimate, though I keep this from my children.For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,sunk in a lake. Life is short and the worldis at least half terrible, and for every kindstranger, there is one who would break you,though I keep this from my children. I am tryingto sell them the world. Any decent realtor,walking you through a real shithole, chirps onabout good bones: This place could be beautiful,right? You could make this place beautiful.

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Translated from the Japanese by William I Elliott and Kazuo KawamureWhen summer comesthe cicadassing again.Fireworksfreezein my memory.Distant countries are dimbut the universeis right in front of your nose.What a blessing that peoplecan dieleaving behindonly the conjunction"and".

Tuesday, April 04, 2017

Translated from the Spanish by Stephen KesslerI wonder whee my life is, the one that couldhave been and never was, the daring oneor the one of gloomy dread, that other thingwhich could as well have been the sword or shieldbut never was? I wonder where is my lostPersian or Norwegian ancestor,where is the chance of my not being blind,where is the anchor, the ocean, where the forgettingto be who I am? I wonder where the purenight is that the unlettered working dayentrusts to the rough laborer so that hecan also feel the love of literatureI also think about a certain matewho waited for me once, perhaps still waits.

Lambs that learn to walk in snowWhen their bleating clouds the airMeet a vast unwelcome, knowNothing but a sunless glare.Newly stumbling to and froAll they find, outside the fold,Is a wretched width of cold.As they wait beside the ewe,Her fleeces wetly caked, there liesHidden round them, waiting too,Earth's immeasurable surprise.They could not grasp it if they knew,What so soon will wake and grow.